On March 3rd, 2023, the power for many families in central Kentucky went out. This continued for many days after the initial power outage, and this caused lots of issues for restaurants and stores as well. There are many reasons the power goes out, and that’s what I’ll be covering in this article.

Power outages can be caused by trees, lightning, wind, ice and snow, rain, animals, digging, and planned outages.

Trees: Tree branches collapse all the time, even in the ideal conditions. These limbs touching power lines and electrical equipment cause frequent power outages. The weather, tree age, and pruning (removal of unnecessary limbs) are all factors that interfere with electricity. Branches falling can also cause flickering.

Lightning: Typically strikes tall objects like trees, telephone poles, wires, and transformers. It also tries to find the quickest way to the ground, and all of these act as conductors. Lightning puts a large amount of extra power into electrical equipment, causing it to blow up or get damaged.

Wind: Wind cause tree limbs and other debris to damage or fall onto power lines. This can cause light dimming or a complete power outage. Serious wind can also affect telephone poles and other electricity equipment.

Ice and Snow: A build-up of snow and ice can make power lines break. Also, heavy ice can either weigh down trees or cause them to fall, which can damage power lines and poles.

Rain: Heavy rain and melting snow is able to damage above and below ground equipment. If the rain is so severe, the city informs energy companies to turn of the power manually. This protects people from electrical hazards.

Animals: Small animals such as squirrels and birds frequently come in contact with electrical equipment. When animals come in contact, it can cause a fault which interrupt the flow of energy. This can cause flickering or a power outage.

Digging: Contractors, landscapers, and homeowners can damage underground equipment by digging. It’s better to hire someone to dig for you, and call 811 two days before digging.

Planned Outages: To repair equipment safely, scheduled outages are used. These are brought to the attention of people, and it’s planned ahead of time.

The week of March third’s power outage was caused by wind and trees. Winds were at very high speeds, which damaged utility poles and wires. Also, trees were blown over and branches fell and damaged the electrical equipment. Even at one point, a tree caught on fire due to hitting a transformer. It is annoying when the power doesn’t come back on right away, but hopefully this article gives new insight. There are a lot of things that cause outages, and there are many steps taken to fix them.